Chaos at Prescott High

by Stunich, C. M.

  “Oh, god,” I groan, letting my head fall back. Bracing my feet on either side of him, I start to move, pushing off the shelf and the wall to get the movement I need to stir up friction.

  Victor quivers as he struggles to stay still, his hands on my hips, encouraging the movement. It feels so good that I lose myself, moving faster, pushing harder. Vic ends up stumbling back against the door as I attack his mouth.

  The bathroom is so small that when I put my feet against the wall on either side of him, I can also brace my arms against the wall behind me. I rock my hips forward and back, my body soaked in sweat, trembling with fatigue. But I’m doing it, I’m fucking Victor Channing against a wall.

  “Shit, darling, you really are my little Havoc Queen, aren’t you?” he murmurs against my mouth, shuddering and moaning as I work his dick into a frenzy, encouraging him to come and loving how vulnerable he looks while he orgasms. I am choosing not to finish myself, not right now. I want to hold this over him. I cling to Vic as he shudders, his hips pumping of their own accord a few times before he sags back against the door.

  “Well?” I ask, and he laughs at me, a bit breathless and very obviously surprised.

  I’ve just shocked the shit out of him.

  “Lemme get you a crown made, baby,” he murmurs, his voice thick with sex and satisfaction. “You can have half my kingdom. Fuck, you can have it all. I made it for you, you know, Havoc.” And then he kisses me on the mouth, and I forget what I said about not having an orgasm.

  I have two before I leave our little cocoon of darkness.

  Afterwards, I come out of the bathroom to see Aaron waiting for me. He says nothing, and neither does Vic, but they look at each other with an interesting mix of admiration, respect, and loathing.

  “Try to get along, would ya?” I ask, lighting up a cigarette as I move toward the sliding glass door, opening it and leaning against the edge so I can smoke half-in and half-out out of the house. “We have enough enemies without making them of each other.”

  “Huh.” Vic just smirks and shakes his head while Aaron scowls at him.

  “You guys work so well together,” I continue, determined to find some way around their jealousies. Because I’m not eager to give either of them up. “Don’t screw it up because you want exclusive access to my pussy.”

  “Bernadette,” Victor growls, but he’s already rummaging through the fridge, so he can’t be too serious about it. I look at Aaron and he stares back at me.

  “Hours,” he says, and then he smiles. It’s all he needs to say. We both know we have a standing appointment.

  “Hey Bernie,” Vic says after a moment, looking up and over the fridge door at me. My reverie with Aaron breaks, and I glance back at him. “You know that we never slept with Kali, right? I want to make sure I’ve clarified that quite clearly.”

  I just stare at him.

  I begged and begged him to answer that question and instead, he screwed me against the wall of his father’s house. Now he’s telling me? But looking into his crow-black eyes, I can see why. What we’re doing here, Havoc and me, it’s not something they’d ever share with someone like Kali.

  “We’ve never shared any girl,” Aaron adds, and I feel my focus on Vic snap. Wow. Blinking, I try to clear my head and focus on them both at the same time. They pull me in opposite directions; I’ll have to be strong enough to pull them toward me instead. “Not once.”

  My body flushes with heat, but I turn quickly back toward the backyard, finishing my cigarette.

  I’ve never heard anything more romantic in my entire life.

  My Havoc Boys.

  Mine.

  By the following Monday, the entire school knows that Danny Ensbrook is missing.

  A cop calls me into Ms. Keating's office, and to make shitty matters even worse, he recognizes me right away as the Thing's stepdaughter.

  “You're Neil's delinquent brat, aren't you?” the detective asks, which isn't at all professional. I sit slumped in the chair, my nails digging into the wooden armrests as I glare at the cops with every ounce of loathing and hatred I feel for my stepfather. I don't have to pretend to be nice; nobody at Prescott High likes the police. Already, two students have refused to come in here, another half-dozen have ditched classes for the day, and Jim Dallon threw his drink into the detective's face. Seeing the wet stain on his white button-down makes me want to smile. But then, I wouldn't want him to get the wrong idea.

  “Mr. Constantine,” Ms. Keating starts, trying to keep things professional. Bless her heart. There's nothing professional about the motley misfits that attend this school. She just keeps trying and trying to save our fucking souls. How long is it going to take her to realize that there's no saving us? “Please try to keep your questions in line with the investigation.”

  “My apologies, Ms. Keating,” Detective Constantine says, his brown hair and brown eyes as interesting as a puddle of mud. He thinks he's attractive, but instead, he's just painfully average with a decent haircut and a nice tie. I hate him instantly.

  “You're not allowed to question a minor without the presence of a parent or guardian,” I drawl, glad for once that I truly don't know where Danny's body is or what the boys did with him. Less to lie about, less to hide. Not that I'd tell either way. I'd rather jump off a bridge. “I don't see a parent or guardian in this office.”

  “Well, now, Bernadette,” Constantine says, scooting a bit closer to me and trying to smile in that patronizing way that adults often use on teenagers, like we don't have functioning brains in our skulls. “This isn't actually an official investigation just yet. We're just trying to understand why Danny didn't come home after the Halloween party last week.”

  I yawn and wish I had balls to scratch, just to add a little extra rudeness to my disdain. Fuck it, I don't need balls. I scratch my crotch anyway, and smile when Constantine gives me a strange look.

  “Sorry, crabs,” I explain, which is a total bullshit lie, but I'll admit that it's hilarious to see the detective's face scrunch up in disgust. “Must be all those trains I let the boys run on me.”

  “I'm sorry, what?” Constantine asks, his innocent face twisted into an expression of confusion.

  “Ms. Blackbird,” Ms. Keating warns, but she can't know if I'm lying or not either. Now everyone's uncomfortable.

  “By boys, do you mean Havoc?” Constantine asks, his interest in the conversation piquing slightly. I stare at the stubble on his face. There isn't a single hair out of place, like he's carefully shaved the edges and plucked any stray strands. This tells me immediately that he cares a lot about his appearance.

  “As a detective, aren't you supposed to, like, shave your face?” I quip, but clearly, he's used to dealing with much bigger fish than me. He just keeps smiling which pisses me off to no end. How dare he sit on the edge of Ms. Keating's desk like that, all casual and young and plucked to perfection. A good guy. Well, putting rapists and murderers in prison and then letting them go to recommit their offenses doesn't make him seem like a good guy to me. My foster brother, Eric Kushner, was accused—but not convicted—of rape three times before he tried to come after me.

  Keyword here being tried.

  “Ms. Blackbird,” Constantine continues, undeterred by my tactics. “Nobody's in trouble here, no crime has been committed.” I smile at that, but the detective pays me no mind. The easiest way for me to get caught here would be to play nice. Nobody at Prescott High ever plays nice with the cops. “But we know how these Halloween parties go, the sorts of pranks kids play on each other.”

  “Kids?” I echo, raising a brow, but the detective ignores me. I bet he practiced this speech in the mirror this morning, too, right before his wife handed him a coffee while wearing her Betty Crocker inspired apron.

  “We just want to find Danny and bring him home safely, that's all.” Constantine—who knows what his first name is—ratchets his smile up a notch. “His parents are really worried about him, Bernadette.” Oh, so we're on a first-na
me basis now? I resist the urge to scowl, keeping my own smile firmly in place.

  “Wait? His parents? You mean the Ensbrooks?” I laugh without meaning to. “Those white trash losers don't give a shit about their son. I'm surprised they even called in to report him missing. They spend ninety-nine percent of their time shooting up, and the rest lying in comatose heaps. They're heroin junkies, Constantine.”

  He just stares back at me, still smiling, not a single crack showing in his perfect façade. I decide I hate him already. Maybe I'm not being fair. Maybe, because the Thing is such a monster, and I've had such poor experiences with the police in the past, I'm not giving Detective Constantine a fair shake.

  Also, I don't give a crap.

  “It was actually Ms. Keating here who called in to report him missing. Come on, Bernadette, where is he? Locked in a shed somewhere near the party?”

  “I don't know where Danny Ensbrook is,” I quip with a roll of my eyes. “He's a waste of life. Why the hell would I keep tabs on someone like him?”

  “Maybe because your gang is in a war with his?” Constantine asks, and Ms. Keating steps in to separate us. She needn't have bothered. I'm not intimidated by this ass-fuck.

  “Alright, that's enough, detective. You asked your question, and Bernadette answered. If you need anything more, you'll have to call her mother.” Ms. Keating crosses her arms over her chest, making it very clear this conversation is over. And she does it all while wearing a hot pink pantsuit. See, her I do like.

  At least she's handling this situation and not Principal Vaughn, the asshole who shouldn't rightfully still be around.

  Constantine turns to our vice principal and nods once.

  “I understand, and you're right.” He turns back to me, still smiling. Still fucking smiling. “Thank you so much for your cooperation, Bernadette. We'll be in touch.”

  I shove up from my seat and head into the hallway. Only then do I let my hands shake.

  “How did it go?”

  A familiar voice stops me where I am, and I turn to find Oscar waiting in the shadows. Even with my instincts on full alert as they always are, I missed him standing there. His glasses catch the light, but that's the only part of him that I can see from here.

  I try not to let that icy little shiver trace down my spine, but it happens anyway.

  “You are one, creepy psycho, you know that?” I ask, my heart racing as he steps out from between the two banks of lockers, dressed in his usual black suit and white dress shirt, complete with bloodred tie.

  “What did the cop want?” he asks casually, but there's something decidedly not casual in his expression as he looks me over, like he still doesn't trust me.

  I'm not sure that anything has ever pissed me off more.

  “He wanted to know where we buried Danny's body,” I say with a smile, and Oscar frowns at me. I take a few steps closer to him, reaching up to adjust his tie. He slaps my hand away at the last moment, smiling down at me to soften the blow, to make it seem like he truly doesn't care if I touch him or not. He does. “I told them I'd check in with you guys, grab the murder weapon from Hael's trunk, and then we'd all reconvene at the party house.”

  Oscar just stares at me, his eyes like cold fog beneath the freakishly clean lenses of his glasses. His ink is intense, crawling out from beneath his shirt and taking over his neck. He's got two demonic hands wrapped around his throat with reaching claws, a fitting bit of décor considering our prior interactions. I try not to think about him shirtless in the bathroom, stitching up the wound on my arm, but I fail miserably.

  “Do you think that's funny?” he asks me, and I smirk.

  “Actually, I do. You know what's even funnier though?” I reach up for his tie again, and this time, he lets me touch it, lets me run my fingers down the smooth silk. “You. Stop looking for a reason to distrust me; you're not going to find one.”

  “What if I could get you an out?” Oscar asks, reaching down to pry my fingers off his tie. His are covered in tattoos, as if some cosmic artist dipped them into a can of paint. They're long and wicked, the hands of a devil. I imagine Oscar could cast some black voodoo magic shit if he wanted to, stir up demons and spirits with those hands of his.

  “An out from what?” I ask, tucking my hands into the pockets of my old blue jeans to pretend like they're not tingling, like I can't feel every single place he just touched me. “A princess dress, for a princess.” Oscar's childhood voice rings in my ears, and I can just see him, his skin bereft of ink, his tiny hands wielding round-tipped scissors. “You better not mean an out from Havoc.”

  His smile turns into an evil smirk, twisting his face into something inhumanly beautiful, but equal parts terrifying.

  “What if I told you we'd complete your list, that we'd let you stay with us for the rest of the year, but that you could walk away at graduation? How would you like that? You could even take your cut of Vic's inheritance with you.”

  My eyes narrow to slits, and I'm so goddamn pissed right now, I feel like I could hit Oscar right here in the hallway and not give a shit what that looks like to the rest of the student body. Maybe if I hit him in the balls hard enough, they'd jam up his throat and stop him from spewing asinine crap.

  “What was it that Vic said to Donald?” I ask, musing on that for a minute. I snap my fingers like the memory's just come to me. “Ah, that's right.” I step close to Oscar, tugging on his tie. He lets me do it, but he curls his long fingers around my wrist and squeezes, meeting my glare with one of his own. “Do you think I give a shit about money? Do you think that's what motivates me?”

  “Perhaps not,” Oscar purrs, leaning down to put his lips near my ear. “I think it's dick that motivates you.”

  I laugh at him. How can I do anything else? His response warrants little more.

  “You think dick is hard to get?” I scoff, shaking my head and shivering when Oscar's breath feathers against my ear. “I've been fighting against dick my whole life. You are aware that all I have to do is walk up to basically any guy I want and ask if he's down to fuck, and he'll say yes. And that's not because I'm exceptionally beautiful or anything; that's just the way the world works.”

  “Mm.” Oscar stands back up, cocking his head slightly to one side before reaching up with his middle finger to push his glasses up his nose. “Let me correct myself: I meant very specific cocks, when I made that statement. For example, Victor Channing's dick.”

  “What about my dick?” Vic asks, appearing on my right side like a shadow in the night. I shiver, and then add a mental reminder to myself to ask them all how they do it, how they walk around in broad daylight without being seen. That's a skill I could see coming in pretty fucking handy.

  “Oscar and I were just having a little chat,” I say, keeping my focus on his gray eyes. He's tensed up a bit, now that Vic is standing beside us, like maybe he's a tad nervous I'll tell Havoc's leader what he just said. There's a good chance that Oscar hasn't voiced this idea to our boss. After what Vic told me last week, about how his love was selfish, I don't see him letting me go so easily. “He thinks I'm addicted to your cock.”

  Vic grunts a laugh, tucking his inked fingers into the pockets of his jeans as he gives his friend a long, studying sort of look.

  “What do you care if she is?” he asks, a dangerous edge to his voice.

  “I don't,” Oscar replies smoothly, turning back to me. I could tattle on his ass right now, tell Vic that he questioned me about my interactions with the cop, as if I would ever tell a pig anything. Victor warned him about questioning me, back when I found the box. He most definitely wouldn't be pleased to hear about this. But then, I'm no snitch. Instead, I just smile at Oscar, letting him know that our little secret can stay between us. “It was simply an observation.”

  “Well, observe your ass back to class. With cops crawling the campus, we have to be on our best behavior.” Vic turns back to me, his stare like glass, sharp enough to cut. “How did it go in there?” he asks me, and I shrug
. “I'm guessing you didn't play the good little girl, now did you?”

  “I don't trust the police,” I say, thinking of the Thing. Sure, some cops are good guys. So are some criminals. They steal to feed their family, or they beat the shit out of a guy that molested their daughter. They still go to prison. But just as the oxymoron good criminals serves, so does bad cops. There is true evil in Neil Pence. Combine that with unchecked power, a badge, and a firearm, and it spells trouble. “He acted like the Ensbrooks were mourning their long, lost son.” I roll my eyes dramatically, a la Regina George in Mean Girls. “As if those heroin junkies even know that they have sons, let alone that one is actually missing.”

  We all pause as the door to Ms. Keating's office opens and she looks at the three of us with a raised brow.

  “Mr. Channing, if you would,” she says, holding out a hand to indicate he should come into the office. “Mr. Montauk, Ms. Blackbird, I'd like if you attended class today. You're both on track to graduate; that isn't something you'd like to mess up in the homestretch, now is it?”

  “Not us,” I say, splaying my fingers against my chest. “Of course not. Come along, Mr. Montauk.” I scoff that last bit on the end of a laugh as Vic cracks his neck and then sighs dramatically.

  “Let's get this over with, shall we?” he says, disappearing into the room as I turn back to Oscar. Pretty sure he's, like, the valedictorian or something. I mean, not that that's a huge accomplishment for Prescott High. There are students here who can't write their own names.

  “After everything we've done to you,” Oscar says with a small sigh of disappointment, tucking his iPad close to his side. “You fall into bed with Vic then Hael and, of all people, Aaron?”

  “Is that what's bothering you?” I quip, fully intending to take my sweet time heading back to biology. I'm not about to become a scientist, so it's a huge waste of time anyway. “That I don't have enough self-worth and dignity for your liking? As Kendall Jenner once said, you act like I’m not in full control of where I throw this cooch.”